teukquila

[teukquila]

Top Gun (1986) // Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

[teukquila]

And violà! @kazanskys-mitchell

[teukquila]

Cher photographed at her home in Beverly Hills, California. October 30, 1977.

Photos taken by Michael Montfort.

[teukquila]

[teukquila]

John Gavin as Julius Caesar in Spartacus (1960)

[teukquila]

*trying to validate other trans guys* Of course you can be a man while being short and having a high voice and long hair and tits! These things don’t make you any less manly, in fact they can even make you even more manly! For example, just look at Tom Cru- *gets shot*

[teukquila]

tony scott//bruce weber

'Director Tony Scott says he found inspiration in a book of black and white photographs by gay photographer Bruce Weber. Scott was taken by the haircuts and style of Weber’s models, as well as the “intent of their eyes,” and showed the book to Paramount execs to give them an indication of his aspired aesthetic. “Everyone was scared because it was infamous in terms of the gay community, this book,” said Scott, who died in 2012. “That’s where all these haircuts came from and this hard-edged military look".'

[teukquila]

[teukquila]

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE + VERTIGO

[teukquila]

this user is very very proud that she grew up with SuJu and she hopes that they can grow old together

[teukquila]

Reflections on Maverick

A year ago, today, I watched Top Gun: Maverick in theatres for the first time. I’ve seen the first Top Gun before, sure, but anyone who knew me will tell you I was not someone with Tom Cruise posters on my wall or had any kind of interest in the United States Navy. Regardless, whatever demons compelled me were strong enough to move my legs to the living room, walk right up to my parents and say “let's go watch the new Top Gun movie tonight”— and we did. 

What happened next can only be described as pivotal. In all seriousness, going to the movies has always been integral part of growing up in my family. I remember my mom telling me about her dad making sure he took her and her siblings out to the cinema at least once a week, a ritual my mom has attempted to keep up with me and my brothers. My grandfather’s promise resulted in my mom spoiling every Paul Newman picture I put on the television screen before I even hit play, but her ensuring I saw a 5’7 man from New Jersey scale the Burj Khalifa on the Big Screen makes up for it.  My family even ventured out in the brief window of time when the theatres opened to see Tenet (back to the Movies indeed). But watching Maverick was another experience entirely. Every single seat in the theatre was filled, from the elderly couple in front of me to the kid behind me who loudly asked “is he dead?” when the Darkstar went down (everyone laughed, by the way). On the way out, I took a poster. It remains the only film poster I have taken from a theatre.

Maverick gave this audience a dose of something that we have all felt a severe deficiency of in recent years: sincerity. The film is sincere all the way through. It is sincere in its commitment to the genre and it is sincere in its presentation to the audience, even relegating a large part of its promotion to the sincerity of the In-Jet flight sequences. Before the film even begins there is a sincere form of gratitude that the lead actor and producer Tom Cruise gives the audience. This “thank you for coming to the movies” pre-show speech has been referenced to death and copied by a large portion of theatrical releases, but never done to the same effect as Cruise’s (for reasons I might discuss at another time). The genuine effort in the film was palpable, at no point did anyone in the theatre feel like they were failing a test because they did not do their Top Gun Lore homework, or that the filmmakers were patronizing them for even being there. 

The film is more effective in its summer of ‘22 release than it would have been if it had come to us in a timeline where everything had not gone to shit in 2020. The constant trend of postmodern irony and self-reflective fourth wall-breaking deconstruction but never reconstruction that just leaves us standing anxious on a non-construction have left many tired, yearning for the strong foundations that modernist films did and did well. Nostalgia was at an all-time high and we all wanted to not be Here. We wanted an ideal world where sons reconcile with their father figures and the water is always the right temperature for beach football. Where the rules of a two-ball football game did not even exist but the sun was out, One Republic is playing, and we are all hot as hell so who even cares. Many have lamented that there is no villain in Top Gun: Maverick just because its not the one in the MIGs. The villain is the idea that those humans on the beach do not matter. The idea that after all their efforts, they don't deserve to come home to that beach and enjoy their nonsensical football game. Every time we enter a theatre, we sign a contract with the projector to inhabit whatever world they have prepared for us, and that world is our home for the next 2ish hours will be. Maverick teaches the Dagger Squad how to come home, Tom Cruise shows us what that home we deserve is. He filled the seats, turned the lights down, and showed us what his home for us will be for the next 2 hours. Our home had love, forgiveness, sincerity, and ambition, coupled with real planes, real G’s, the world’s tightest screenplay, and some real good sound. Maverick took you for a ride and kindly dropped you off as you exit the theatre with a Tony Scott sunset on the horizon.

[teukquila]

[teukquila]

[teukquila]

requested by @victoryfeather

[teukquila]

This was on a post discussing shit parents doing a new satanic panic. Valid points all around but. But I’m crying. This is the funniest lie ever, no parody I could come up with this will be this funny. Nonbinary Julius Cesar

[teukquila]

This is another one of those "things I have no evidence for but I add to my belief system" but paramount buying out miramax (HW's baby) in 2020 when it was very clear HW is cooked gives very big "fuck you - signed tom cruise" energy

[teukquila]

movies used to be rated R and make so much fucking money man what happened